Sony's PSN will be down for maintenance on August 18

Sony has announced that it will be taking the PlayStation Network down for what it calls routine maintenance and improvements a week today.

The downtime is coming next Tuesday, August 18, and will be expected to last for about an hour and a half. The maintenance begins at 5:30 in the morning, running through to 7:00, so will likely be over before most people actually get out of bed.

At least if everything goes according to plan, that is, and no gremlins rear their ugly heads while Sony is tinkering with the PSN systems.

If you do happen to be gaming at that time of the morning, Sony notes that you will still be able to sign into your PSN profile, play games, and use “most” apps while the maintenance goes on.

What you won't be able to do is buy anything in the PlayStation Store, access your account management, or PlayStation Video.

In a post on the PSN Status web page, Sony said: “We strive to ensure that PlayStation Network services are available at all times, but occasionally we must take PlayStation Network offline to perform essential maintenance and implement feature enhancements. We are working hard to reduce the duration of each maintenance.”